


Still Alive

by SoulOfEmerald



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Lyricstuck, Old Fic, Post-Sburb/Sgrub, Sad with a Happy Ending, Songfic, slightly OOC
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-14
Updated: 2019-10-14
Packaged: 2020-12-14 21:47:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21022766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SoulOfEmerald/pseuds/SoulOfEmerald
Summary: After Dave sends her a video file from the past, Rose finds closure over her relationship with her deceased mother.





	Still Alive

**Author's Note:**

> This was an old fic I posted on Amino on the 5th of April, 2018, with some small fixes thrown in. I'm sorry if it is a bit out of character, as I'm not quite used to writing the kids. I had it lying around my Google Drive, and I thought it was about time I gave it an AO3 release. There are a few other old fanfics I might be posting in the near future, depending on how much I still like them.
> 
> I'm sorry I haven't written anything in a year, I have been incredibly unmotivated to write and I have no idea why. I'm working to get back into the swing of things this month, and hopefully will start posting some Invader Zim related works shortly.

turntechGodhead [TG] started pestering tentacleTherapist [TT] at ???:???  
  
TG: yo rose  
TG: so i was doing time shit, right  
TG: and i stumbled across some freak diner-bar combo  
TG: and everything else was boring  
TG: like you can only see the same things so many times before it gets old  
TG: seriously so many places look the same  
TG: you there rose  
TG: rose  
TG: rose  
TG: well shit  
TG: anyway i decided to enter  
TG: and there was this woman that looked sorta like Roxy drinking like it was the end of the world  
TG: i mean it almost was  
TG: i was looking around seeing what happened just before the game for reasons that aren't relevant right now  
TG: but i decided fuck it and ordered a glass of aj  
TG: and they didn't have any  
TG: worst dinerbar 2/10 on yelp  
TG: so i'm sitting there  
TG: and the woman pays and gets up  
TG: and she starts stumbling over to me  
TG: so i'm thinking she's gonna flirt with me  
TG: and i'm prepared to tell her i'm not into cougars  
TG: but then she just set some flash drive in front of me and said to take care of her daughter  
TG: so naturally when i got back i looked at the drive  
TG: surprisingly no viruses  
TG: but i found a video on it  
TG: to rose  
TG: that was literally the title  
TG: i'm guessing you're that rose  
TG: so here's the link for whenever you get this  
To-Rose.mp4  
  
turntechGodhead [TG] ceased pestering tentacleTherapist [TT] at ???:???  
  
Rose read over the series of events her ectobiological sibling had sent her once more. While she was rather concerned as to why Dave had been venturing into that point in time, he didn't appear to be online, and it seemed that the link he had sent would take much more importance than what he had done a little while ago. Jade had most likely begged him to take her into the past again, and he probably had accepted. Still, Rose made sure to make herself a mental reminder to make sure he was alright next time they could communicate.  
  
Rose hovered her mouse over the video file. The looking like Roxy bit was more than likely a half-attempted cover-up for what he had clearly meant, especially with the file name. Yet, as clear as it was, Rose couldn't quite bring herself to believe in what it was. But at the same time, she knew Dave was nowhere near insensitive enough to make any part of this be a joke. Slowly, she clicked the link.  
  
The video downloaded and buffered for a full two minutes. 

* * *

** "This was a triumph.**  
** I'm making a note here: HUGE SUCCESS"**

* * *

Rose sat silently as the video loaded, showing the woman who had raised her, whom she thought she'd never see again in that version. Mixed emotions pumped through her heart, veins, and soul.  
  
"Heya Rosie!" Her mother chimed. The twinge of sadness in her voice was clearer than the glass in the kitchen window of her old home, the one in which Rose had spent thirteen years of her life in. Her mother sat in the center of the screen, with the camera supposedly resting on the counter. She held a wine glass in her right hand, though she seemed uncharacteristically uninterested in it.

  
"If you're hearing this, you probably survived that game thingy." Rose didn't have time to question what was said, as her mind had been slowed by the emotions she had been so suddenly filled with, and the digital recording of her mom kept going with her one sided conversation. “Or you just learned my password and found this on my computer or something. You could just be sittin’ confused in front of your laptop. Either way, congratulations! You have no idea how proud of you I am right now. However, if you found it the latter way, you can close this now. None of the rest of this has any relevance to your current life.”

There was a long pause.

* * *

** ”It’s hard to overstate my satisfaction”**

* * *

A sad smile crossed her mother’s face. “If you’re still here, you’re probably still sitting at your laptop, but not as confused and probably in some godly jammies.” Rose was in fact not sitting in her godtier robes, but instead was wearing the outfit her wife Kanaya had made her for working with the grubs in the main brooding caverns of their new planet. However, the general meaning was understood by the Seer.

“Can’t say I’m surprised you made it. You’ve always been an extraordinary gal. Smart and strong, and with a crazy amount of courage even when you were this big-” She held her left hand a few feet from the top of the counter. “And you had all those friends you were always writing and sending gifts to. I’m certain they always had your back, and you had theirs, knowing you.”

The parent looked off somewhere to the left. “I wonder what element thingy you are,” she waved her hand dismissively “I can never remember the word they used for it. They barely told me anything about them besides they’re based on personality and all that.”

* * *

**Aperture Science,**

**we do what we must, because we can.”**

* * *

“I don't really even know who ‘they’ are.” her mom said, putting emphasis on the word “they”. “I know there were at least three people involved. Three I contacted anyway. Team Skaianet, they always said they were. But sometimes they'd put their last names at the bottom. The one that wrote to me the most was named Harley. He was polite, but he wrote like an old man, ya know what I mean? He was the first to write to me, soon after I got you.” She paused as she realized what she said. “Whelp, if ya didn't know, ya do now. Sorry ‘bout that Rosie. Anyway, back on topic.”

* * *

** “for the good of all of us,**

**except the ones who are dead.”**

* * *

The woman sighed. “That Harley was a good man. Had I known the last letters would be the last, I would've told him that. He seemed like the kinda guy who'd just… be there forever, ya know?” She stared sightlessly into her martini, deep in thought. “That was the only time I encountered that one named Hussie. He just kinda sent a letter saying he died in an accident. Nothin’ else. Not how, or any final words. Just that he died.”

* * *

**”But there's no sense crying over every mistake,**

**you just keep on trying till’ you run out of cake”**

* * *

“After that, everybody just kinda went back to doing what they were doing based on the next few letters. The rest were sent by a Fox guy, and he tried to be nice, but he was never the same.”

* * *

**”And the Science gets done, and you make a neat gun,**

**for the people who are still alive.”**

* * *

“They always said the same general things. ‘This is a very important project’. I knew that. But I always took pride in you whenever you were mentioned. They always kept talking about how amazing things were in store for you. How you had a huge future ahead of you. I hope you've gotten that future by now. You deserve it.”

* * *

**”I’m not even angry, I’m being so sincere right now.**

**even though you broke my heart, and killed me”**

* * *

“I’m assuming by now you’re pretty confused if you found this early. To be honest, I’m still confused by all this, and I’ve been hearing about it for years.” She set the drink down. “I know you know this, and you may not even care when you find this, but one day, I’ll die.”

She paused.

* * *

**”And tore me to pieces, and threw every piece into a fire.**

**as they burned, it hurt because I was so happy for you.”**

* * *

“Sometimes I wonder how I’ll die. Usually I’d think I’d die of some age related thingy. But other times I wonder what could happen if the project really happens. Maybe I’ll be cut to bits by some rouge robot or something-”

Rose’s breathing hitched as her mom let her mind wander. How close she’d been to guessing her fate.

“-or maybe I’ll fall into a volcano. That would be a cool way to go, huh? Eh, I know that’s probably not gonna happen. Either way, I’m going to probably die sooner rather than later. But honestly? I don’t care, so long as I can know you’ll be safe. If I must, I’ll sacrifice myself for you. If I can, I’ll stay around and help you as much as you’ll allow me. Project or not, I’ll do that for you Rosie. Even if you end up hating me, even if you hate me already, I’ll do what I can for you.”

The kitchen door squeaked faintly as it opened. Rose’s mom smiled as a not-so-stealthy teenager slinked towards the freezer. Rose’s eyes widened. She remembered this, albeit faintly. The teen opened the freezer door painfully slowly, as her mom nudged the camera ever so slightly as to provide a better view. After what felt like ages, the teen reached into the fridge, snatched a tub of ice-cream, slammed the door, and youth-rolled out of the room. The mother chuckled at her daughter’s antics.

“Just a minute Rosie, I think present Rosie deserves a bigger treat than that ice-cream.”

Rose paused the video just as her mom was about to press the button to end the recording. According to the time bar, there were a few more minutes left to it.

Rose remembered exactly what had happened that day. She’d stolen the tub of ice-cream, and made a beeline to her room. A few minutes later, her mom had entered, and said that day was the perfect day for the two of them to do something she’d been planning to do. She had sounded strangely sober, something she was in no way used to at the time. They had gone to the aquarium that day, and her mom had spent extra for to allow Rose to pet an especially tame squid they featured. All of that on the day Sburb was supposed to be released.

Rose refused to let her mom see she enjoyed it. At the time, she thought her mom was making fun of her interests, punishing her for the stolen frozen treat. In twenty-twenty hindsight, Rose realized that her mom really did want her to have fun. A wave of guilt washed over her, and it took her a little over five minutes to work up the will to press play on the video once more.

* * *

**”Now these points of data make a beautiful line**

**and we’re out of beta we’re releasing on time”**

* * *

Rose watched as her mother pressed the button on the camera, only to watch her hand pull away a second later. The window no longer showed daylight, but instead a darkness that only came with night.

“Sorry I made ya wait. I’m probably going to edit these recordings together tonight.”

“I guess it was fate that I started recording today. Got another letter from that team Skaianet. Here, lemme read it to ya.”

She pulled out a letter and unfolded it. She cleared her throat.

“We are sorry for the inconvenience, but it appears the launch of the project has been delayed by a couple of days. Nevertheless, we expect it to arrive in various planned locations by the end of the week. Then there’s a bit of chitchat, some puns, and it’s signed ‘Fox’.” She folded up the letter and set it somewhere offscreen. “Kinda lucky to be honest. I don’t think I ever would’ve gotten this done without this extra time. At least it isn’t delayed too much.”

* * *

**”So I’m glad I got burned, think of all the things we learned**

**for the people who are still alive.”**

* * *

“I’m glad I got to spend that time with you at the aquarium too. I know you didn’t look like you were having fun, but I know you were. Mother’s intuition after all. I know I’m bringing this up way too much, but if I die in the next few days, I hope you can remember the good times we’ve had, in between all the bad ones.”

* * *

**”Go ahead and leave me. I think I prefer to stay inside.**

**maybe you’ll find someone else to help you.”**

* * *

The mother’s smile fell.

“Who am I kidding? There aren’t enough of those good memories to do much with. I’ve just been drunk and cleaning and doing other things, and you pretty much raised yourself. You didn’t even want to talk to me for the past year or two.”

Rose wished she could comfort the poor woman. Sure, a number of the points made were true, but she still wanted to hug her mother’s sadness away. A moment of recollective silence proceeded after the sudden change in mood.

“You deserved better. Who knows, you’ll probably get someone better sometime soon. You already have those friends, they’d probably take better care of you than I ever did.”

* * *

**”Maybe Black Mesa”**

* * *

"I heard timey and spacey stuff is gonna go down with that project, maybe those thingies will combine and give you a better version of me. Like an upgrade.”

Rose’s eyes involuntarily darted to one of the pictures on the walls, this one containing a photo of Calliope, and more relevant at the moment, Roxy.

* * *

** ”That was a joke, haha, fat chance.”**

* * *

A special kind of sadness had crept into the voice of the mother Lalonde. The voice of someone who’s somewhere between giving up and yet having to continue on.

“What would even be the odds of that happening? Probably not high.”

A pause.

“Man, this has really gotten depressing, huh?”

* * *

**”Anyway, this cake is great,**

**it’s so delicious and moist.”**

* * *

“I should probably get to wrapping this up before things go too much farther downhill.”

The parent took on a far away look.

“A bunch of years ago, back when you were still a baby, I met a nice man in front of a prank store. You ever seen a picture of those cheery looking 1950s men, the ones with the newspaper and pipes, always smiling at the camera? Well, he looked exactly like one of those guys. We ended up chatting a while, and he turned out to be a real nice guy.”

“Well, it turned out, he tended to bake a lot. And he told me something that I’ve still remembered to this very day. He told me he saw life like a cake that you have all to yourself. You can do two things with that cake. You can eat a bunch of it, risk getting sick, but in the end feel satisfied that you took as much of the cake as you could. Or you could take small slices, take no risks, but in the end have to throw away most of the cake once it’s gone bad.”

“He said life was a lot like that. You can either do as much as you can with what you have, risk some form of injury, but leave life content with what you’ve tried. Or you could live a calm life, and though you may wonder why you hadn’t tried some things while you were still able to, you can still leave life content with your calm choices. In the end, it’s up to the person. You’ve got this big cake in front of you, Rosie. What are you going to do with it?”

She went silent for a minute, offering time to think.

“I think it’s time for me to go. Thank you for putting up with my ramblings this long. And remember, no matter what happens, I have loved, currently love, and will always love you.”

She reached for the camera once more, and the video ended.

Rose wrapped her arms around her legs, processing everything she had just heard. The voice she hadn’t heard in years, the sadness, the well wishes, the “I love you”s, the everything. She sat in silence, wishing she had formed a better relationship with her mother. Wishing she had done so many things differently.

So many.

* * *

**"Look at me still talking when there’s science to do,**

**when I look out there it makes me glad I’m not you.”**

* * *

_But if I did those things differently, would I be where I am now?_

Rose was startled out of her regrets by her own thought. But she quickly grew glad it did, for it was correct. If she had interacted with her guardian any differently, she more than likely never would’ve played Sburb in the long run. She never would’ve met most, if any, of her current friends, she never would’ve met Kanaya, she never would’ve experienced everything she had. She likely would’ve ended up becoming like a different girl altogether, one who more than likely would’ve died on Earth what felt like so long ago.

Yet, here she was now. She had friends, she had a wife, she had a family beyond a single guardian. Yes, she felt bad for not showing her mom as much love as she did, but she also knew that what had happened had happened, and changing that would affect a different Rose, not her. Sitting alone in sadness wouldn’t change anything at all.

* * *

**”I’ve experiments to run, there is research to be done**

**on the people who are still alive”**

* * *

Rose smiled faintly. She decided there was only one way to honor her mother’s memory.

She leaned over to her laptop and saved the video file, and shut it down. She had things to do that were more important than watching the same video over and over like a broken record stuck in a time loop.

* * *

**”And believe me I am**

**still alive” **

* * *

Rose set the laptop next to an outlet and plugged it in, and got up for the door. The door opened just before she got to it, allowing her wife into the room.

* * *

**”I’m doing science and I’m**

**still alive”**

* * *

The jade blooded troll’s face took on a layer of concern. “Rose, are you alright? You look as if you’ve been crying!”

* * *

**”I feel fantastic and I’m**

**still alive”**

* * *

Rose wrapped Kanaya in the biggest hug she could manage.

“I'm doing wonderfully, thank you.”

* * *

**”And while you're dying I'll be**

**still alive”**

* * *

After Rose and Kanaya finished their shifts tending to the grubs in the brooding caverns, they left to help set up for the “meeting of the gods” as everyone else called it. The kids, trolls, and cherub just called it a monthly family reunion. No matter what it was called, it still required to be set up. The Striders showed up sometime soon after they did. Rose made sure to hug Dave for as long as he'd let her, which meant a good fifteen minute hug, only broken up by the need of an extra set of hands to help with the chairs.

* * *

**”And when you're dead I'll be**

**still alive”**

* * *

Rose looked over the set up she, Kanaya, Dave, and Dirk had managed to work out. Already she could hear the sounds of laughter and the exchanging of stories. She could feel the happiness enter the room before anyone else even arrived. This was how she was going to honor her mother. Through showing love and happiness to the family she had now.

She felt that it was only fitting.

* * *

**”Still alive”**

* * *

timaeusTestified [TT] started pestering tipsyGnostalgic [TG] at ???:???

TT: I managed to decode the video file you sent me. The one you found in your files.

TT: You were right, it was from Alpha Rose.

TT: Here

Below the text resided a video file, renamed by Dirk to be something much more fitting than the string of numbers it once was. Roxy stared at the file. She and Calliope wouldn't have to leave for the reunion for another hour, and she was already most of the way ready to go. It couldn't hurt to watch, she decided. She hovered her mouse over it, and clicked it.

To-Roxy.mp4 

* * *

**”Still alive”**


End file.
